MAN RESCUED FROM FALL INTO 35-FOOT WATER WELL

After being trapped for two hours, an unconscious man was removed Sunday night from a 35-foot-deep water well at a house in Potrero in what a Cal Fire official called “a very technical rescue.”

The 42-year-old man was extricated at 6:16 p.m. after accidentally falling into the well, said Cal Fire spokesman Mike Mohler.

His condition was not known, and his name was not released. He was taken by a helicopter ambulance to Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego, Mohler said.

The fall was reported by the man’s son at 4:16 p.m. The man had been working on the 5-foot-diameter well at the home on Potrero Circle, near Potrero Valley Road, when the board supporting him snapped and he fell in.

About 30 firefighters from Cal Fire and Santee and Chula Vista fire departments assisted in the “confined space rescue,” Mohler said. The Sheriff’s Department also responded to the incident.

The rescue required shoring up the well’s dirt walls to make it safe for firefighters wearing respirators to be lowered down to the injured man, Mohler said. The process is time consuming, as precautions are taken to keep dirt from falling on the victim and making the rescue more difficult, he said.

Once firefighters reached the injured man, they brought him up and took him to the Potrero fire station. From there, he was flown to the hospital.

“We train on these kinds of rescues several times a year. ... Does it happen very often? No. But it’s a very technical rescue,” Mohler said.

Fire at vacant Escondido building conquered

Fire and heavy smoke were coming from the building on East Valley Parkway, near North Date Street, when firefighters arrived at 8 a.m., according to a news release from the Escondido Fire Department.

Nothing was in the building, fire officials said.

The cause of the blaze was under investigation.

stacy brandt • U-T

Occupants escape Point Loma house fire

point loma

A woman in her 90s was taken to a hospital after a fire broke out in the basement of her Point Loma house Saturday night, fire officials said.

Smoke was reported billowing out of the single-story house on La Cresta Drive near Narragansett Avenue about 9:30 p.m., a San Diego Fire-Rescue Department dispatcher said.

Two women got out of the house, but paramedics were needed to take the older woman to a hospital for smoke inhalation.

It took firefighters some time to find the source of the flames in the basement. They got most of the blaze under control by about 9:55 p.m., a dispatcher said. The cause of the fire remained under investigation.

pauline repard • U-T

Two men struck by cars in separate accidents

san diego

Two pedestrians were hit by cars and seriously injured in unrelated accidents in City Heights and Oak Park on Saturday night, San Diego police said.

The first incident occurred about 9:40 p.m. at 54th Street and Westover Place, near Euclid Avenue in Oak Park.

A 58-year-old man was knocked unconscious and suffered a broken femur when he was struck by a northbound pickup, police said. Paramedics took him to a hospital and officers blocked the roads during their investigation. The truck driver, a 57-year-old man, was not injured.

About 10:30 p.m., an officer driving on University Avenue in City Heights found a man lying in the road at Van Dyke Avenue.

The incident was being investigated as a likely hit-and-run, with witnesses telling police a white two-door sedan struck the man and kept going eastbound, police said.